Why You Should Man Up and Wear a Floral Fragrance

When I was 5, my sister decided she was tired of having a little brother, so she outfitted me with a dress, a palette’s worth of dark-blue eye shadow, a shock of red lipstick, and a healthy spritz of Primo!, our mother’s “Designer Imposters” Giorgio knockoff, then paraded me in front of our parents. My father surveyed his only son, now a tiny drag queen answering to “Denise,” and brushed all that aside in favor of the big issue: “Boys shouldn’t smell like flowers.” The next day, we took an emergency fishing trip.

From the Editors of ​Details​

If recent mass-market fragrance trends are any indication, some of your favorite perfumers suffered similar childhood traumas. Popular brands are increasingly offering “extreme” or “intense” formulas, featuring higher concentrations and added notes of leather, coffee, and musk and packaging that looks like it rolled off the Aston Martin assembly line. And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with a signature scent that screams “I’m an M-A-N!,” such loud olfactory statements can seem like conspicuous compensation for shortcomings unseen. Instead, try the ultimate in quiet, confident masculinity: smelling like an orange blossom, a gardenia, or a heliotrope.

And, really, why not let the flower power shine through? You’ve already been wearing florals—though they may have been obscured by an overspiced, mossed-out fog or omitted from the name. The industry’s dirty little secret is that it’s been peddling petals to guys the entire time. “All men’s fragrances have florals in them,” says Eric Weiser, co-owner of Twisted Lily, a boutique in Brooklyn. “They just don’t always advertise them.” Weiser estimates that 95 percent of his stock is unisex and has noticed an uptick in the popularity of jasmine scents among male clientele, an indication that consumers are rejecting the sexual compartmentalization of fragrance. “Flowers grow from the earth,” he says. “Does that make them feminine? Or is dirt masculine?”

Christopher Brosius, perfumer and founder of the fragrance line CB I Hate Perfume, doesn’t consider gender when he creates a scent, and he encourages others to sniff with an open mind. “Every now and then, there’s a surprise,” he says. “A guy you’d consider a ‘dude’ will choose To See a Flower—a mix of hyacinth, crocus, daffodils, and jonquils. It’s about, ‘Do you like the way it smells or not?’ It’s that simple.” Of course, considering a scent’s appeal to those with whom you share space is also wise, a fact I learned one night while test-driving Maison Francis Kurkdjian Paris Oud Satin Mood. As I slid close to my wife in hopes of seducing her with rose essence and vanilla, she blurted, “You smell like my grandma’s friend Harriett—she’s dead.” Oddly specific mood-killing message received. The following evening’s offering, Byredo’s orris-infused Gypsy Water, inspired more affection, and she liked Le Labo’s Rose 31 so much that she started stealing it from me—so she’d be reminded of me throughout the day, or so I tell myself—a bit of medicine-cabinet petty larceny that’s apparently not uncommon. “We often have couples wearing the same scent,” Brosius confirms. “It becomes a bond.”

Fortunately for any man who bristles at the thought of swapping gold-filigree atomizers with his girlfriend, bottle designs vary as widely as the concoctions within—from the pink-petal detailing of L’Artisan Parfumeur’s Rose Privée, which would look right at home on a Hayworth vanity, to Brioni’s magnolia-centric eau de toilette, whose hefty square flacon could double as a murder weapon. Niche-market fragrances are largely eschewing sex-indicative packaging altogether, according to Mindy Yang, curator of the SoHo-based perfumery MiN New York. “We created a gender-neutral shape that’s modular and modern,” she says of the bottles for Shaman, a signature unisex eau de parfum, which incorporates notes of violet and rose in addition to incense, patchouli, and absinthe. “Because we do witness how design and decoration affect purchase decisions.”

One last thing to consider: While your newfound floral freedom may announce to the world that you’re a self-assured tuberose man, what you choose to reveal beyond that is up to you. “If you want to run through a field of flowers, nobody’s going to give a damn,” Weiser concludes. “If guys are secretive about what they’re wearing, it’s only because they don’t want their buddies copying their scent.”